Self-driving cars are slowly becoming less sci-fi and more real-world as companies like Waymo, the autonomous arm of Google's parent, Alphabet, expand into more areas. On Wednesday, Waymo said it's driving in four new cities: Baltimore, Pittsburgh, St. Louis and Philadelphia.
Waymo is starting with manual driving in Baltimore, Pittsburgh and St. Louis before eventually switching to autonomous operations. In Philadelphia, it's now operating autonomously with a human specialist monitoring behind the wheel. This comes after Waymo said in July that it was bringing a limited fleet of its vehicles to "the most complex parts" of the city, "including downtown and freeways."
Waymo currently offers fully autonomous rides to the general public in Phoenix, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Atlanta, and Austin, Texas, through the all-electric Jaguar I-Pace. The vehicles can be summoned either via the Waymo app or Uber, depending on the city. In November, Waymo began driving passengers on freeways in San Francisco, Phoenix and Los Angeles.
The self-driving company has added several new cities to its roster in recent months. In an Aug. 29 blog post, Waymo noted it's "entering a new chapter and accelerating our commercial expansion." You can find a full list of where Waymo currently operates and plans to expand below.
Waymo's growth extends to its manufacturing facilities. In May, the company said it's opening a new, 239,000-square-foot autonomous vehicle factory in the Phoenix area. The plan is to add 2,000 more fully autonomous Jaguar I-Pace vehicles to its existing 1,500-vehicle fleet. Notably, Waymo indicated it received its "final delivery from Jaguar" earlier this year, as it plans for future iterations of its driverless rides. Waymo added that the "facility's flexible design" will allow it to integrate its upcoming sixth-generation self-driving technology into new vehicles, starting with the all-electric Zeekr RT.
Last October, Waymo also announced it's partnering with Hyundai to bring the next generation of its technology into Ioniq 5 SUVs. In the years to come, riders will be able to summon those all-electric, autonomous vehicles using the Waymo app. And in April, Waymo said it reached a preliminary agreement with Toyota to "explore a collaboration" geared toward developing autonomous driving tech, which could someday be factored into personally owned vehicles.
The self-driving company says it's driven over 100 million fully autonomous miles on public roads and has provided more than 10 million paid rides. I've hailed several rides myself in San Francisco, and as off-putting as it can seem at first (especially to see a steering wheel turn by itself), I quickly adjusted, and it soon felt like an ordinary ride.
That's not to say there hasn't been pushback as Waymo rolls out to more cities. The company's vehicles have been involved in a handful of high-profile collisions, including one with a bicyclist in San Francisco and another with a towed pickup truck in Phoenix. (Waymo recalled and updated its software to address the issue.)
Waymo's Safety Impact report notes that over the course of 71 million autonomous miles driven through March 2025, its Waymo Driver technology had 88% fewer crashes leading to serious injuries or worse and 78% fewer injury-causing crashes, compared with "an average human driver over the same distance in our operating cities." It also reported significantly fewer crashes with injuries to pedestrians (93%), cyclists (81%) and motorcyclists (86%).
As Waymo continues to expand and develop its self-driving tech, here's how and where to summon the robotaxi if you happen to be in one of the few cities where the company currently operates its fleet.
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